“It is
often perceived that because students and faculty do not interact directly in
web-based classes, cheating will be more abundant than that which would be
observed in a traditional classroom setting” (Grijalva, 2006, p. 2). As discussed in Laureate Education (2010),
many people feel plagiarism “runs rampant” in online learning communities.
As the experts in the video stated, plagiarism happens about the same amount in
an online course as it does in a face-to-face course. One area that
students may not consider plagiarism is using work they have written and
submitted for a previous course, as discussed by Laureate Education (2010).
It is academic dishonesty to reuse course material, per the experts in the
video. This is an area that I have not thought of previously. I do
not think I have had a situation in which I have had the same assignment due in
one course and another. I can see the
problem with turning in the same assignment twice and see the academic
dishonesty in that.
Grijalva (2006)
discussed the importance of the instructor/instructional designer developing
courses to avoid plagiarism. Assignments and discussions that lead
student to develop their own thoughts based on what is stated in their
resources do just that, make plagiarism difficult for students. Also,
methods of detecting plagiarism are used in online courses when assignments are
turn in, such as the TurnItIn technology tool. TurnItIn is a system that,
“Provides a service to determine the originality of texts based on
comparisons with their internal database and net-wide searches” (www.turnitin.com).
In addition, Grijalva (2006)
claims that communication with students from the instructor and the “breaking
down of social barriers” (p. 3) leads to less cheating in online courses.
This is much like in a face-to-face course, whereas getting to know your
students and gaining respect from those students helps to avoid such issues as
cheating.
“The
first strategy for minimizing academic dishonesty in online student assessments
is to acknowledge the disadvantages, and find ways to overcome them” (Olt,
2002, p. 5). Letting students know how cheating will hurt them, rather
than help them, can be beneficial. Many online learners are adults training
for their future careers. As one of those adults training for my future I
consider is a disservice to myself to cheat on assignments. I would think
most adults feel the same way.
As a
future instructional designer I feel it is important to design courses in which
students are encouraged to complete work that is honest. Many tips from
this weeks’ resources provide ways to do so. As stated in Olt (2002) “Cox’s approach
recommends using a series of small, sequential, individualized tasks and
student-centered personal responses to provide multiple checkpoints during the
online course and ensure that students, in order to complete the assignments,
have to keep up with the class readings and respond to class assignments themselves”
(p. 5). This is the type of courses set up by Walden University that have
prepared me for my future career.
Resources
Grijalva, T. C. (2006). Academic
honesty and online courses (Doctoral dissertation, Department of Economics,
Weber State University).
Retrieved from http://ugs.usf.edu/pdf/courses/0708/cheat%20online%20pap.pdf
Laureate Education (Producer). (2010).
Plagiarism and cheating
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Olt, M. R. (2002). Ethics and
distance education: Strategies for minimizing academic dishonesty in online
assessment. Online journal of distance learning administration, 5(3). Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall53/olt53.html?utm_source=November+13%2C+2012&utm_campaign=Google&utm_medium=email
TurnItIn. Retrieved from
http://turnitin.com/
